


Of Dusk

by sannlykke



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mentioned - Touou High (Characters) - Freeform, Youkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7481343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the day is over he would hop down from his roost and go about his business, survey his territory, that kind of thing. The life of a tengu isn't tremendously exciting most of the time. Until the day a fugitive barges into his mountain.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><br/>"Didn't I tell you to leave?"</p>
  <p>"That would be rude," Imayoshi says. "A host should always make sure his guests are well-fed."<br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Of Dusk

**Author's Note:**

> ...i actually finished this around/for imayoshi's birthday but things came up so i just left this in drafts and now guess what? that's already a month ago! oops.  
>  this is more of a pre-relationship sort of fic now that i think about it, but y'know.
> 
> **(tw for: injury, blood, minor cannibalism mention, spiders...sort of??)**

Imayoshi’s favorite time of day is dusk.

There’s a tall maple on the highest point of his mountain where he would sit, his back fitting comfortably in the curve of its delicate branches as he watches the sun go down. The dying light painting the leaves remind him of autumn, when the tree would indeed match the colors of sunset. 

He likes that, the flicker of light before total darkness.

When everything is done Imayoshi would hop down and go about his business, survey his territory, go to sleep. That sort of thing. Tengu in this part of the country are wont to make moves on each others’ lands at the slightest provocation. He is not unsociable when in the mood, but few others bother him in the first place. It is much more satisfying to watch the others squabble among themselves.

…Although it is not _entirely_ pleasant he now has to share living space with someone worse than another tengu, yet.

Today Imayoshi makes his way to the cave on the far side of the mountain, following the rotten scent he’s come to recognize over the past few days. The unwelcome visitor has not been booted off his mountain yet simply because, Imayoshi had realized very quickly, it would be wiser to stand back and observe.

But Imayoshi is not a cowardly daitengu, nor an ungenerous one. It is all the same to him when he reaches the mouth of the cave and sits there, inches from a protective barrier. He opens his mouth.

“Don’t start.”

Imayoshi tilts his head curiously. “You come to my mountain like this, but won’t even let me look at your wounds?”

“I don’t need a healer,” the voice growls. Imayoshi lights a small fire beside him in response, studying the other’s long tangled hair and torn clothing. There’s a pulsating wound, the skin a disgusting mass of purple, centered around an arrow buried so deep he can only see half of it poking out. Every few seconds the flesh contracts, and Imayoshi hears a low hiss. “Fuck off.”

“Okay,” Imayoshi says, shrugging. There is blood, thick and blackened and putrid, pooling underneath the leg. He gives it two weeks, three at most. “Suit yourself.”

He turns and takes off into the forest.

 

 

 

The next morning he wakes up to a pebble hitting the side of his face.

“Hey, tengu.”

Imayoshi looks down; there’s two unfamiliar youkai standing beneath the tree he uses as a bed. One of them is chewing on something slowly, most of his face obscured by a strange shock of lavender hair. The other stares up at him blankly. He’s holding a sack, and Imayoshi can see hair poking out of it.

Most of the other tengu in the area have started erecting barriers around their mountains to keep nosy creatures away, but Imayoshi has never believed in that himself. Nothing interesting ever comes out of keeping people away. Despite the possibilities of _this_ happening.

Still, he smiles at them. “Good morning.”

Lavender tosses another pebble into the air. “You see Hanamiya around?”

“I don’t believe I’m familiar with such a person,” Imayoshi replies. He watches blood seep through the faded green fabric of the bag, dripping onto the ground. That would not go unpunished, but at the very least it does not smell like any of the shrine attendants who live at the foot of his mountain. “Unless you mean him with an arrow lodged in his leg.”

The two exchange looks. Imayoshi lands on the ground before them, dusting off the leaves on his clothes with a fan. Fish-eyes nods at him. “Yeah, that guy.”

“He’s out back,” Imayoshi says, pointing. “In the cave with three mossy stones at its entrance. Oh, _I_ am not keeping him there, in case you wonder, though it is true I have not seen a tsuchigumo around in many years. Want me to take you there?”

Fish-eyes shakes his head. “Nah, we can find it.”

It takes all of a second for Imayoshi to step aside quickly as Lavender strikes at the spot where he’d been standing, leaving a long gash on the ground. He reaches back for a second attack, but too late; Imayoshi pins them to two separate trees with a sweep of his fan.

When the dust settles, he walks up to Fish-eyes, who is not squirming half as bad as Lavender is. Imayoshi inspects the bag on the ground briefly, then tosses it back at him. “Here I’d thought a kappa would know better than to spill blood on a tengu’s mountain, Furuhashi Kojirou.”

“So you can read minds,” Furuhashi says. He does not sound surprised. “I’m just bringing him lunch.”

“And that one?”

Furuhashi shrugs. “How else did you think Hara got this?”

“Sorry,” Hara murmurs, not apologetic in the least. He wriggles an arm, but doesn’t cut into the bark. “Won’t do that again, promise.”

Imayoshi releases the kamaitachi anyway; he’s not sure if he’ll like sun-dried weasel, and for once is not curious enough to find out.

 

 

 

“Hey, boss, we got food for you.”

Imayoshi watches the barrier open a slit as something darts out, curls around the bag, and withdraws. Furuhashi and Hara sit on the rocks, staying within Hanamiya’s line of sight. “Took you two long enough. Where’s Seto and Yamazaki?”

“We got lost,” Hara admits. “Forest was shitty.”

“I wouldn’t think of it as the forest’s fault,” chides Imayoshi gently as he slides up to them. “After all, most pass through unhindered.”

Hanamiya makes a derisive noise. “Why the fuck is _he_ here.”

As gloomy as the inside of the cave is, the daylight is strong enough for Imayoshi to make out his features this time—sallow cheeks and pale skin, dark circles under his eyes. There is something else there, stirring his thoughts. _So I was right, I suppose_. His disguise is human enough save for the matter of the leg. Imayoshi does not break eye contact with Hanamiya as he reaches for the contents of the bag.

He coughs politely. “I suppose you’d like to eat with your friends undisturbed.”

“Well—” Furuhashi begins.

“Don’t touch him,” Hanamiya cuts him off. There’s a loud crunch of something that sounds like bone. Hara picks his nose. “When I get out of here, I’m killing him first.”

 

 

 

There’s a stream near Imayoshi’s usual roost, and it’s there he finds two more strangers in ragged clothing sitting by the reeds. Or, more accurately, _one_ of them is sitting—the other one is sprawled on the ground with a taro leaf covering his face. Imayoshi waves a fishing rod at them. “Care to join me?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Mountain god, Yamazaki.” The one on the ground lifts the leaf off his eyes. Imayoshi sees that his left hand is wrapped in a makeshift gauze. “Hanamiya probably still wants him around, seeing that he isn’t dead yet.”

“That’s no way for guests to talk,” Imayoshi sighs, but he doesn’t do anything but sit down on his usual rock and drop down a line. It’s true, regardless of the way Hanamiya had threatened him the first time he’d gone down to look at the cave. There is no doubt the tsuchigumo is dangerous, but with a wound like that it would take him a good while before he would want to expend so much energy again. “You are lucky the warrior priests of Teikou Shrine haven’t tracked you down yet.”

Yamazaki frowns. “Hanamiya told you _that_?”

“He doesn’t need to.” Imayoshi points at the blackened holes on his sleeve, and the burns of his companion. He would point at the momentary expression of actual regret he’d seen on the other two’s faces as well, but that would be considered rude. “I too have met crossed paths with them before. I suppose the others were not involved, hm?”

“Nope,” Hara replies, coming up from behind a tree. Furuhashi follows behind him, hands empty this time. Neither of them seem to have eaten, though Hara is busy chewing on a leaf. He glances at the other two. “Maybe you should go look at him, Seto. He doesn’t look too hot.”

It is then Imayoshi feels a tug on his line. He reels it in, carefully measuring the strength of the fish, and yanks it out of the water. The others watch him repeat this several times, unusually quiet, until there’s a good pile of _ayu_ beside him. Imayoshi strings them up all up on a cord, and then stands up, finally satisfied.

Yamazaki narrows his eyes at him, and Furuhashi stares pointedly at the fish. Someone’s stomach makes a noise. Everyone knows it is forbidden to hunt on a mountain where tengu reside.

Though _good manners_ is something much to be desired from these rowdy youkai. “Shall we make a deal, then?”

 

 

 

He brings the remainders of their dinner to the cave, alone this time apart from several flickering fireflies trapped in a paper lantern. If Hanamiya had been asleep before his arrival, he does not show it.

“Didn’t I tell you to leave?”

“That would be rude of me.” Imayoshi holds up the roast fish with still-crackling skin. It smells tremendously more inviting than the ubiquitous odor of cursed, rotting flesh that Imayoshi figures would take at least a few months to air out when this is all over. “A host should always make sure his guests are well-fed.”

Hanamiya hesitates for a moment; Imayoshi doesn’t bother trying to read his thoughts, so plain are they on his face at this moment. The barrier opens just a tiny bit, enough to allow Imayoshi to stick the fish through. They are snatched from his hand in seconds, and the sound of furious chewing and swallowing fills the silence between them.

Imayoshi smiles, leaning back into the rock. “How is it?”

The sound stops. “Edible.”

“Good.” The stars are already coming out over his head one by one. At another time, Imayoshi would be gazing at them, perhaps down by the shrine as the acolytes divine the next day’s fortunes. Even if the people have noticed something amiss, the humans seldom look for guidance from him, and he usually leaves them be accordingly. There is already something to be said about humans bold enough to live near this mountain.

“It is an extraordinarily brave thing to do, to attack a shrine with so many priests living there.”

“If you’re just going to laugh at me—“

“I am not laughing, am I?” Imayoshi stretches, watching the . “Hanamiya, is it? Your friends are really quite worried about you.”

Hanamiya spits out a fishbone. “What do you want.”

“Hm?”

“You wouldn’t still be here talking to me if you didn’t want something.” Hanamiya glowers at him. “I know you’ve been watching me from the trees. Thinking I wouldn’t notice.”

“Ah, but that is not what I thought at all.”

Imayoshi hops onto the rock behind him as shadowy threads squirm out from beneath the cave walls; he watches, fascinated, as they spin around each other, forming the long, spiny legs of an overlarge spider. It does not attack him right away, though he continues to watch Hanamiya’s face carefully. “Should you perhaps not overexert yourself in this state?”

“Shut up.”

He raises a hand, and the silken appendage mimics those movements, ready to come down at any moment. Imayoshi blinks at it, a hand reaching slowly into his sleeve for his fan.

—Unneeded, really, as he hears a hiss of pain immediately afterward. Hanamiya pulls back his hand quickly, and it is then Imayoshi sees the dark spots on his side, just above the hip. He waits for the shadowy threads to slip away again before hopping down and walking towards the cave.

“Perhaps this would be of use,” he says, looking at nobody in particular.

Hanamiya stares at the bundle of herbs as if they are poison, and Imayoshi does not bother to stay and see if he takes them.

 

*****

 

“You seem a little better.”

Try as he might, Hanamiya can’t un-hear the concern in Furuhashi’s voice, and _that’s_ definitely saying something coming from the kappa. The four crowd around the cave entrance like gawking at some sort of exotic animal, and it makes him feel nothing but antsy. “You sure you don’t want us coming in?”

“No,” Hanamiya says, turning away and biting down on his lip as he feels another wave of pain shoot up his side. “It’s fine. _I’m_ fine. Where’s that overgrown bird gone to?”

Furuhashi and Seto exchange looks, and the latter mutters _told you so_ before turning back to Hanamiya. “Fishing. Thought you didn’t want to see him?”

“I don’t.”

They squabble among themselves for a bit before deciding to wander off to explore the mountain, but not before making absolutely sure Hanamiya would still be there upon their return. _It isn’t as if Imayoshi is going to show up and try to kick him off the mountain anytime soon_. Hanamiya hopes they’d stir up some trouble in his absence—perhaps fell some trees, or even steal Imayoshi’s fan. _He’d_ do that, if he were able to leave this cave.

But he’s also seen the nasty burn healing on Seto’s arm, doing so at a much faster rate than normal for someone recently burned by Aomine Daiki’s flames. The others seem more curious than anything, and that annoys him as much as the fact that Imayoshi’s herbal concoction _have_ eased some of the pain in his leg. Not _all_ of it, but enough to allow him to concentrate on something other than trying to not die from a fucking arrow wound.

As much as he is loath to admit it to Imayoshi, it had been a _tremendously_ stupid idea trying to sneak into Teikou Shrine. They’d been drunk on pilfered sake, or at least Hara and Furuhashi had been, and then they’d gone and woken Seto and pulled Yamazaki into a _plan_ that had gone all sorts of wrong and—

Well.

He doesn’t know what Imayoshi wants, but tengu don’t just help people without wanting something in return, and Hanamiya can’t think of any reason why _any_ tengu would help a tsuchigumo. It grates on his mind that he might even _owe_ Imayoshi a little something now.

“He didn’t ask for anything in exchange,” Hanamiya mutters to himself as he leans back against the bare stone walls, wrinkling his nose. Furuhashi had brought some water earlier; the brief respite from pain had given him enough strength to finally clean himself and the wound, though pulling the arrow out would still be too much for him at the moment. At least the tengu can’t complain about him dirtying up his stupid mountain.

Not that Hanamiya cares about that.

He closes his eyes and digs his fingers into the ground, listening to the familiar vibrations at his fingertips. Hara’s footsteps are the heaviest and easiest to track; he’s off by himself east of the cave, but Hanamiya finds no sign of recently-fallen trees. To the north is Furuhashi and Yamazaki, near the pond. Seto’s movements are harder and fainter to pinpoint, though he’s somewhere to the west—sleeping up in a tree again, perhaps.

There is no sign of Imayoshi, either. Maybe Furuhashi drowned him.

He hears the slightest rustle of wings outside.

“Of course,” he mutters to himself as a shadow falls over the light streaming through the entrance. Imayoshi is empty-handed this time, but that doesn’t quell Hanamiya’s suspicions about any of this. “What do you want.”

“I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself yet.”

“I don’t care.” Hanamiya stands, wobbling a little; he is sick of having to look up. “I already know it, Imayoshi.”

Imayoshi stands very close to the barrier, folding his arms. His smile is almost unbearable to look at. “Oh?”

Hanamiya stares back, unwilling to give in, but there is no backing out of it now. There is something about this situation that unnerves him. “The others were talking about you.”

“Not only about me,” Imayoshi says conversationally. “You know, I’ve been here for quite some time. You hear all sorts of things—the warrior-priests of Teikou Shrine are most well-storied of this age. Before their time, there were the demons they call the Uncrowned—though they have never been united in the way the Teikou priests have been. Such is the way of youkai.”

He drums his fingers along the boulders that surrounds the cave entrance, almost humming to himself. Hanamiya stares at the ground, listening to the uneasy memories flit to and fro inside his head.

“There are a dozen mountains surrounding this one, each easier to take than the other. Would you remember, perhaps—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” snaps Hanamiya, glowering once more. “I was here—“

_…Oh_.

Neither of them say anything for a while. Then, as if no time had gone by, Imayoshi begins again, “When I was younger, I met someone who looked a great deal like you. Perhaps three, four hundred years ago. She—”

“She’s long gone,” Hanamiya cuts him off, hating how his voice comes out strained. Whether or not Imayoshi had intended it, he could tell his thoughts are clearly leaking again. It makes him want to reach out through the barrier and choke the fucking daitengu, if not for the fact that his leg is acting up again. “If you’re gonna ask if _I_ remember you, like this is some petty little reunion talk, I don’t.”

Somewhere deep in the cave is a spring, the steady flow of water usually too faint and far away for him to hear. Now all Hanamiya hears is the water, and the scuttle of various underground insects away from him.

When he hears the feathers rustle again he wants to feel triumph, but there is nothing there.

 

 

 

On the sixth day Seto comes by with a stone bowl full of some sort of ground paste of earthy colors. “You don’t have the barrier up anymore.”

Hanamiya shrugs, and then blanches at the smell. “Eugh, what the hell is this? Don’t tell me—“

“We made it for you,” Seto replies, squatting down. The burns on his arm are almost completely gone. “Actually, well, Yamazaki and I made most of it. Saiko root and licorice, the blood of a _jubokko_ tree—”

“Not many of those around anymore,” Hanamiya says. He does not talk about the one he remembers growing at the foot of this mountain, a twisted thing, leaning away from the sun. It is evident that it had not been any of them who had gone to retrieve the ingredient. “Shall I guess where you got the recipe from?”

Seto plants the bowl in his hands as an answer.

It stings tremendously, those initial moments when he rubs the concoction on the wound, so much so that Seto even deigns to look politely away from the unflattering noises coming out of his mouth. After a minute it settles, seeping seamlessly into skin. The arrow glows.

Hanamiya searches through the red feathers until he locates the body of the arrow, closes his eyes, and pulls.

“Oof, that looks pretty messy.”

“Shut it.”

He curls his fingers around the arrow, blackened and caked with blood, and it crumbles to dust.

“No thanks needed,” Seto says lazily, standing up again. “After all, we would not be here if you hadn’t—“

“You think I want to handle Furuhashi and Hara all by myself?” Hanamiya grumbles, but he can’t bring himself to be annoyed. Nor, as he finds out rather too late, could he stop Seto from grinning at his unspoken _without you two around_. Well. It would be a while until the effects of the arrow would completely wear off, but for now he touches the closing wound, mind turning to the other question that had been eating at him through the entire ordeal.

He frowns as he touches the ground. There’s an unknown vibration not too far from them, perhaps two, and Imayoshi—

“Where’s—“

“Don’t look so surprised. He’s off the mountain today.”

“He’s _what_?”

 

*****

 

“It is rare for you to be here for someone other than Daiki or Satsuki.”

Outside, there is a _plock!_ of the _sozu_ in the stone garden. If Imayoshi turns, he could see it clearly through the half-open screen. Though doing so would not be ideal, if he wishes to continue this conversation.

He sets down his empty cup of tea on the table, acutely aware of how Akashi Seijuurou is observing his every move. “As it were, I’d had no intention of visiting until now.”

“Of course,” Akashi replies, reaching for the teapot. Imayoshi glances at the bow resting beside him, a long, strong curve of bamboo and wood and strengthened hemp. It is a wonder how anyone would think of jumping in front of such a weapon; then again, it had been exactly that foolishness that had led that person to Imayoshi’s mountain. “I understand you are here for the…disturbances that happened last week.”

The tengu inclines his head. “Yes.”

“Very well.” Akashi sips at his tea. The windows rattle ever so slightly with the wind picking up outside, and it is not without some sense of resignation that Imayoshi realizes he ought to have asked more than just Susa to entertain his guests in place of himself. “Please, go ahead.”

Seven hundred years ago he had visited this place for the first time. He had been young then, watching the emperor’s men lay the stone foundations and raise up wooden beams for the imperially-sanctioned shrine from far away. The saplings of those days had long grown into towering trees.

They are not for him to roost on anymore, no more than Akashi’s bow is for him to hold.

“Three of the Uncrowned are now under your service, if my knowledge serves me correct,” Imayoshi says, lowering his gaze. “The fourth one…”

“You needn’t worry about Kiyoshi at this moment,” Akashi says lightly. “As you would well know, he has gone away for a while.”

Imayoshi smiles at him. “Of course. But I am not concerned about that.”

“I would like to conduct a little experiment.”

“A dangerous thing to do,” Akashi says, leaning back, his expression unchanged. “It is not for you to ask, nor for me to give.”

“Then,” Imayoshi replies, “We will agree that I did not ask anything.”

He could hear Aomine shouting outside, others too, their mirthful voices mingling with the wind. Funny how it is, that he’d never been particularly prone to reminiscing, and yet—

“Two weeks.”

“Hm?”

“There will be a visit in two weeks.” Akashi closes his eyes. There’s a trace of a smile at the edge of his lips, every bit as sharp as Imayoshi remembers it to be. “I would imagine Daiki would want his childhood home tidied up by then.”

 

 

 

“I-Imayoshi-sama, do you think Susa-sama is holding up okay?”

“He’d be fine,” Imayoshi says, adjusting his grip so Sakurai wouldn’t slip through his fingers. It is apt to rain soon, he figures, but home is but a few wingstrokes away. The wind is strong against his face, and he squints at the torii lined up along the path uphill. “Ah—“

Sakurai lets out a little yelp as Imayoshi drops him somewhat unceremoniously on top of one. “Um—“

“I seem to have forgotten something important.”

“Imayoshi-sama, I can’t get down from here…”

“And here I thought Aomine had taken the time to show you…”

Nevertheless, Imayoshi thinks as he watches Sakurai take the stairs down the mountain, he would not have expected it either. Another flap of his wings take him up again, the draft carrying him towards the far side of the mountain.

It is there he finds Susa sitting next to a small campfire, not far from the cave entrance. At the disturbance, Susa looks up and nods. “You’re back.”

“I am.” Imayoshi looks towards the cave pointedly. “We have more guests, I see.”

“I tried to stop her—“

“And I should’ve remembered to tell you.” He sighs, but notes that there seem to be no abnormalities in the auras nearby. At the very least, he can expect no trouble from the other four. “How silly that I overlooked the absence. How long has she been here?”

“Not for long.”

Imayoshi finds his way towards the entrance, leaning on the stone walls as he calls out, “You really couldn’t have picked a better time, Momoi?”

Momoi pouts at him from between Furuhashi and Yamazaki, who respectively look indifferent and traumatized. “You should’ve remembered! I _told_ you I was coming back—”

“Yes, yes you did.” He sighs, looking around the room. “Where did he go?”

“He went inside,” Hara says, chewing on a stick. Imayoshi would’ve laughed at the thought of any other human walking right into this cave and scaring all the youkai into place, but Momoi Satsuki is no ordinary human. Already the strange scent that had dominated the area had faded to little more than a curiosity if he were to concentrate hard enough on finding it. “That was some good shit, that tree thing.”

“I would hope you two haven’t milked _that tree thing_ dry,” he says, a quiet sort of reprimand, but they smarten up all the same. “Though perhaps it is a little much to ask. Momoi-chan, do you think you can keep them here for a little longer? Perhaps ask Susa to come inside, if it does start raining.”

“And you’ll be out soon?” Her tone of voice is reproachful, but there’s a knowing twinkle in her eye. “Don’t take too long.”

“I know there’s more you want to ask them.” He pauses. “But of course, I will not take too much of your time.”

 

*****

 

Imayoshi’s footsteps are light, but they make vibrations all the same, rattling down the stone all the way to the core of the mountain. It does not take a genius to tell Imayoshi does not often access the myriad caves of this place, much preferring the open air an treetops that better suit his kind. The magic here is ancient, having been here before he had arrived—perhaps will still be, after he is gone.

Healed or not, wounds touched by _jubokko_ sap tend to leave a signature trace of their own for a while, one that Hanamiya can’t be bothered to erase. The footsteps echo louder down the path, following the trickling water that becomes a lively stream, and soon he feels the other’s presence behind him. This particular chamber is comfortably large enough to fit a good-sized shrine, the stream widening into an expanse of water that sent echoes bouncing around the walls.

And because, infuriatingly, he does not speak for so long, Hanamiya cannot help but start. “Why is she here.”

Imayoshi sits down next to him, crossing his legs. “Momoi is not here to finish things off, if that’s what you were wondering. Simply a bit of information is all she wants.”

“I’m not talking.”

“You won’t need to.”

Hanamiya glowers at him. “I can leave now, if I want to.”

“Of course.” Imayoshi tilts his head. “You can do that, and Akashi will continue sending people to track you and your little gang down.”

He leaves _then you’ll have more than an injured leg, and we don’t want that, do we?_ hanging in the air between them, coalescing into the supremely annoyed _tch_ Hanamiya finally deigns to make. There is no use arguing the truth.

“…What do they want.”

“Oh, they don’t want anything. The roof’s been repaired already, after all.” Imayoshi puts a finger to his lips. “Now, I, on the other hand, am most definitely interested in _not_ seeing talent go to waste.”

“What do you—“ Something moves on the ground in the darkness beyond; Imayoshi isn’t paying any attention. Hanamiya sucks in air, cursing. “Fuck that.”

“Hm?”

“I won’t be your little lackey.”

“I do not recall ever saying that.” Imayoshi shrugs, shifting his weight so he balances perilously close to falling at the edge of the water. “You would not have to stay here all the time. Little more than the fugitive’s life you’re living now, if you will, but more than what Akashi will give you. Think about that, Makoto.”

Hanamiya wonders what would happen were he to give the tengu a little push.

As it turns out, he does not need to. The thing in the dark lunges out at Imayoshi, a large centipede the size of a bear, and he reacts without thinking.

In the next moment a single black feather lands on the tip of his nose, the ache of magic in his wrist telling: Imayoshi perches on a stalagmite not too far away, watching the shredded, leaking remains of the centipede sink into the swirling water. Hanamiya gingerly pinches the feather between his fingers while the shadow-limb behind him melts apart into the ground again.

“Next time,” Imayoshi says, his tone annoyingly pleasant, “Try to not aim at me.”

“There won’t be a next time, idiot.”

 

 

 

He follows Imayoshi and the humans as far as where the row of torii begins, where the pebbly, grassy footpath gives away to roughly-carved steps.

“Dai-chan won’t be happy, but I suppose that’s a way to deal with the problem.”

“Will you be coming with him, then?”

“If you need me to.”

“Company is always good,” Imayoshi tells her. _Liar_.

It is not until Momoi and Susa are out of sight that Imayoshi turns towards his general direction with that fascinatingly disturbing smile. “Did you want to say goodbye too, Makoto?”

“…”

“Don’t like being called a problem?”

“Shut up.”

“As I said before,” Imayoshi replies, shrugging as he spreads his wings wide, “Suit yourself.”

Hanamiya shields his face from the swirling dust until it settles, leaving no trace of anyone having been there. He looks up at the sky, at the black dot cruising high above him, beyond reach of anything he could do at the moment. _Asshole_.

But he can’t deny it either, that the vibrations beneath his feet are louder and clearer than any other place he’s been to, that the whisper of magic in the cave resonated with every touch. The eroded statues shrouded by bushes on either side of the road had been here long before the first torii were erected, depicting things that are not quite human, not quite animal, upright and disarrayed with roots extending from their bases, familiar…

“Ready to go?”

“Don’t do that,” Hanamiya snaps, swatting Seto’s face from him. Behind him, Hara hops down from the treetops, while Yamazaki and Furuhashi emerge from the undergrowth. There is no question in their faces. “What, tired of getting free food all the time?”

Hara shrugs. “I mean, we’ll just steal more, won’t we?”

“Too bad, I kinda liked that pond,” Furuhashi says. Yamazaki rolls his eyes. “You can’t steal something like that.”

“The ocean isn’t far from here.” Hanamiya looks at the sky, the wind weaving through his hair, the rustle of the trees. He’d like to see the ocean, maybe. There would be new things to learn, out of the way, buying some time before the inevitable. He cups his hands and yells out at the sky. “Oi, I’m really leaving!”

There is no response; but really, who is he to expect any?

 

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

 

“I still don’t like it.”

“Like it or not, your place is with the Kiseki now.”

Aomine swipes some dust off one of the stone statues, frowning. “I thought you tengu only ever keep to one mountain.”

“We do, short of extraordinary circumstances.” Imayoshi lets the meaning sink in, watching Aomine harrumph and lean against a mid-sized paulownia. “Of course, what does it matter to a human? That happened four centuries before your time.”

“Satsuki—“

“—has conceded on this point,” he points out. “If I happen to be wrong, of course, I will see to the consequences.”

“Akashi would have your head for that.”

“Might you actually sound worried for me?”

“Why the hell would I be?”

The stubbornness in his voice had always been there since he was a child of four, lost—or dumped—on the steps of the mountainside shrine with his rose-haired sister. Barely sixteen years had passed after all, Imayoshi reflects as he smiles back knowingly. He would need it yet. “Well, I shan’t bother you anymore, seeing that you’re not exactly here to give _me_ lessons, are you?”

Aomine chews his lips, glancing towards the cave behind them. “Fine.”

When he leaves, he takes the steps two at a time. There would be a time when he would stop coming back; him and Satsuki both. Imayoshi pulls out his fan, lightly dusting off the rest of the grime with a sweep of his arm. It does not take long for moss to overtake worn stone, for the new to replace the old. He knows this all too well.

As does the sunlight on his face, blinding but not made to last at this hour. Imayoshi sighs, placing a hand on one of the stones. Of course, the poets say this time is for remembering—

Although it is not _memories_ that course through his hands, threading through his skin in invisible waves. There is a distant thump, of feet or claws, of land or water or air. It does not matter to him, really.

“Hello,” he says, to the rustling shadows in the trees. “I see you’ve kept my feather.”

**Author's Note:**

> every time i say im done with youkai fic my brain says No, You're Not, also write a new ship while you're at it...so that's my excuse i guess.


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